Short And...

 

          Short and...

          You thought I was going to say sweet, didn’t you?

          Come on, admit it.

          This picture of Bondi is sweet, but honestly, there was nothing sweet about what I woke up to Sunday morning a week ago! Nothing sweet at all!

          Sometime in the night I woke up to the smell of dog poo. I grabbed the flashlight from the headboard, turned it on, and looked around. These winter days are a little short on sunlight and it would still be dark when I got up. I sure didn’t want to step in something when I made my way to the bathroom where I would turn a light on. A sweep with the flashlight beam didn’t reveal anything that would account for the smell. It never occurred to me that the smell might be drifting in from another room. Even if I had, I might not’ve gotten up to investigate. Done is done and it would be bad enough cleaning it up in the morning, let alone in the middle of the night.

          When I got up I turned on the living room lights. That’s when I saw this!

          Yes, I took a picture for you, just so you can accurately picture what I’m talking about.

          Raini had the walking poops. The more I looked around, the more I found. She dribbled a trail the length of the dining room table, in front of Mike’s desk, in front of the recliner, then circled around the living room! What a mess!

          I expected to find some in the kitchen where she would’ve gone to get outside, but there was nothing there or by the closed pet door. I guess she’s smart enough to know it would be closed so there wasn’t any use to go there. However, it would’ve been a lot easier to clean up on the linoleum.

          “I didn’t know you closed the pet door,” you say.

          Yep. I started doing it a while ago, but only at night. You may remember that the girls would leap from the bed barking their fool heads off, bark all the way out of the bedroom, and continue barking as they ran into the kitchen and slam into the pet door flap at a hundred miles an hour, to go out and chase whatever they thought was out there. Locking the door at night solved that problem but, as you can see, created another.

          “What did you do!” I scolded Raini. I was not a happy camper!

          Raini, head down, nose all but dragging on the floor, slinked to her kennel.

          I went in and woke Mike up. “Be careful where you walk this morning,” I told him. “There’s poop all over the floor in the living room and dining room.”

          Did I mention it was Sunday morning?

          I scraped up as much as would come up, got the shampooer out, loaded it with a pet formula cleaner, and went to work. Some of it was dry, some of it was fresh.

          As mad as I was that some little girl didn’t wake me up, I found something to be thankful for.

“What’s that?” you ask.

I was thankful I had a carpet cleaning machine!

          It took SO long to get the poop out of the carpet. Back and forth I went over a spot. Back and forth — and back and forth — again and again! I thought, maybe if I pre-wet it and let the cleaner start doing its magic, it would come up easier. It didn’t seem to make any difference. It was taking way, way, waaaay too long. At that rate, with the amount of poop there was to clean up, I’d be there all day!  

          Even though I was thankful for the machine, I got a bucket of cleaner, a scrub brush, rubber gloves, and got down on my knees and scrubbed. It didn’t take nearly as long. Then I went over it with the shampooer for good measure.

          I got about half of it cleaned up before I had to get ready for church.

          “Why did she have diarrhea?” you ask.

          All I could think of was the day before I’d given her a Zyrtec allergy pill for the first time rather than the Benadryl I’d been giving her. The vet thinks it works better to relieve her itchiness.

          And Raini wasn’t done having diarrhea either. I was at the sink later and saw her through the window, walking a trail in the yard. And it was still an issue the next day. But other than that, Raini seemed to be fine, so I wasn’t worried.

          Since then, I’ve decided I’d rather have the dogs wake me up with their nighttime barking, leaps from the bed, and imaginary critter chasing, than have to clean up a mess like that ever again. I’m leaving the pet door open!

          It took me all week to realize the true culprit.

          Friday, the weather was nice for November. I went out to clean up poop from the dog run. I came across a little pile of runny poo that I’m pretty sure belonged to the baby. That’s what we call Bondi ‘cause you can’t say either dogs name without disturbing their slumber.

          If I have Bondi in the chair behind me, Mike will call, “You have the baby?” and I’ll call back, “Yeah.”

          “What if you want Raini?” you wanna know.

          That’s Big Dog. The baby and the big dog are what we call them when we don’t want them to know we’re talking about them.

          Speaking of which, there are several things Miss Rosie can’t say because Tux’ll start barking. If we’re on the phone, she can’t hear with Tux barking, so she’ll either describe it to me or spell it.

          “You’ll be in trouble if he learns to spell,” I told her.

          But, I digress.

          I was cleaning up poop and came across a small pile that I thought belonged to Bondi. I didn’t give her any Zyrtec... then it hit me! I’d started buying the small pouches of Old Roy to mix with their dry food. The night before, I’d given Bondi about a third of a pouch to eat straight with no dry kibble in it.

“Raini’s been eating it?”

You caught that. Yes, I’d been mixing it with dry food for more than a week now. And not every day. The only thing I did different the day before her episode was I used a lot less dry food in the mix so she probably ate enough to cause her stomach upset. She’d only been eating about half of what I mixed and I wanted her to finish her plate. I don’t like it when it sits all day and gets nasty.

I paid for that, didn’t I?

And I paid for it again when four days later I spot a poop trail between the recliner and the wall. I don’t know if I’d missed it before or if she’d done it since, but I’ll tell you this. It was stuck to the carpet like glue!

I’ve since found out, by talking to my AI buddy, that Old Roy is a cheaply made dog food brand and is known to cause stomach upset and intestinal issues.

Well, I knew it was cheap! That’s why I bought it! I buy them good dry food and I just wanted them to eat it better.

I’m not giving them any more of it. Spitfire likes it so I’ll give it to him. 

It’s pretty sad when the only thing you have to talk about is poo but there’s not much else besides that.

I spent my time this week painting Christmas cards, which first requires hours in front of the computer looking for designs.

At Halloween, I took my painted cards, scanned them into the computer, created a verse for the inside, and made cards. I gave a few to a gal at church, she sold them and they asked for Christmas cards.

Some of the designs I’ve used are copy protected. Meaning you can’t use them unless you have permission or buy them. Nibbles and Joy was just such a design. Copy protected, I mean. But just to give away a card or two isn’t usually an issue. Most creators don’t think you should make money off their backs.

          With selling them in mind, I went back to the computer and searched for images I’m legally allowed to use. It was hours of searching.

          You wanna hear something?

          There’s a website I follow named Creative Fabrica. They’re really generous in offering you lots of free images. When you download the images, they give you the license. I know I’m legally allowed to use those for my art. In my searching I came across the exact same images being sold on Etsy (a marketplace that sells unique, creative, and often handmade or vintage items). I got the images free. You can use Creative Fabrica images any way you want to, but what you can’t do is resell the original digital file, which I think this Etsy seller is doing.

           Here are a few of the designs I’ve made this week. When I print them, I’ll add a verse inside.

          Speaking of painting, after I sent out my letter blog last week, I realized that I never showed you the finished version of Charli. I want to do that now.

          Not bad for thinking I’d have to throw it away.

          I did start another dog portrait and I did scrap it. It was horrendous. After that dismal failure I needed to paint something to boost my confidence, hence the Christmas cards.      

          I’ve been told that even really good artists experience failures. With that in mind, I’ll give the portrait another go — after I finish Christmas cards.

 

          This week’s letter blog is relatively short, considering there’ve been times I’ve written more than twenty pages. Instead of Short and Sweet, this week is Short and Stinky!

 

          Let’s end with another beautiful sunrise here in my little part of the world.

          Done!